The country’s biggest beach land fraud case starts with challenge

Santo Domingo.- Defense attorneys in the case Bahia de las Aguilas on Monday asked the Supreme Court to remove National District prosecutor Yeni Berenice Reynoso from the prosecution team.

The Bahia de las Aguilas scandal, involving the fraudulent titles for vast tracts of pristine beach in the Southwest, is considered Dominican Republic’s biggest ever land fraud case.

Francisco Taveras, lawyer for defendants Jaime Rodriguez Guzman and his wife Reyna Martinez, said only the attorney general and an assistant prosecutor can be in the courtroom. He said Reynoso isn’t an assistant DA, and only the top prosecutor and deputy prosecutor can take part in the proceeding, as his view, the Constitution stipulates.

Reynosom meanwhile said she’s qualified to proceed as a prosecutor and asked the justices of the 2nd Criminal Chamber to reject the motion.

Among the prominent figures in the hearing figure investigative journalist Huchi Lora, his daughter Diana Lora, Peravia province senator Wilton Guerrero, among others.

One of the attorneys for the State is the environmentalist Laura Acosta Lora, whose mother, the late Piky Lora, headed the investigation into the scandal while head of the Land Court in 1997.